Hurricane plumbing checklist for Southwest Florida: before, during, and after the storm

Hurricane season runs from June through November, and in Lee and Collier County the plumbing questions arrive in a predictable order. The week the cone appears, people want to know what to shut off. The day after landfall, they want to know whether the water is safe and why the shower is full. This checklist covers both ends, and the part in the middle that most lists skip.

Before the storm: what to do while you are watching the cone

• Find the main shutoff now. On a slab home here it is usually at the meter box near the street, or on the house side where the line comes up out of the ground, often near a hose bib by the garage. Turn it a quarter turn to be sure it moves.
• Fill the tubs and some clean containers. Tub water is for flushing and washing. Drinking water goes in clean containers, and the standard planning number is one gallon per person per day for at least three days. If you are on a well in Lehigh Acres, Alva, or Buckingham, this matters more, because no power means no pump and no water.
• Disconnect the hoses and close the hose bibs. A garden hose left on a bib is a lever for wind and debris. Roll them up and bring them in.
• Look at the backflow device. If you have one on the supply line at the front of the house, make sure nothing loose is near it that could hit it. Do not remove it. If it gets damaged, close the valve on the street side of it and leave the rest to a plumber.
• Plan for the well and the generator. If a generator will run the well pump, confirm ahead of time that it can start the pump, and never run a generator in the garage or under a carport. If it cannot, fill containers before the power goes.

If you evacuate

Close the main. A supply line that breaks while you are gone runs for as long as you are gone. Then turn off the water heater: flip the breaker on an electric unit, or set the gas control to off. An electric heater running on an empty tank burns out its elements, and a heater that floods with the power on is an electrical hazard. Leave the water in the tank; you may want it when you get back.

During the storm

• Stop using drains if they gurgle or back up. Heavy rain and surge overwhelm the sewer system, and when the power goes out the lift stations that push sewage uphill stop too. Every flush you add sits in the pipe until the system recovers, and the lowest drain in the house is where it comes back. If a toilet bubbles when you run a sink, or the tub starts to fill on its own, stop. Use the bucket only if the drains are flowing.
• Follow boil water notices. Utilities issue them when pressure drops in the mains, because low pressure lets groundwater into the system. The notice usually comes by text alert, radio, and the utility’s website, and it stays in effect until the utility says otherwise.

After the storm: the first walkthrough

1. Open the main slowly. A quarter turn, wait, listen, then the rest. Then check the meter with every fixture off. If it is moving, something is leaking and the main goes back off.
2. Walk the house looking for water. Under every sink, at the base of the water heater, on ceilings under an upstairs bathroom, around the washer. Wind-driven rain finds vent pipe boots and roof penetrations, and the first sign is often a stain on the ceiling near a bathroom.
3. Flush discolored water. Brown or cloudy water after an outage is stirred-up sediment and air in the mains. Run the outside hose bib closest to the meter for several minutes, then the cold taps inside, then the hot.
4. Do not restart a water heater that sat in water. Once floodwater has reached the burner, the elements, the thermostats, or the gas control valve, the unit is replaced, not dried out. The insulation stays wet inside the jacket, the controls corrode from the inside, and a gas valve that has been under water can fail in ways you cannot see. Have it looked at before anyone turns it back on.
5. Gas appliances and flooding. If you smell gas, leave the house and call the gas utility before anything else. Do not relight a pilot on a flooded appliance.
6. On a well, assume the water is contaminated. Floodwater carries bacteria into the well casing. Do not drink or cook with it until the well has been disinfected and a test comes back clean. The health department publishes the shock chlorination steps, and the pump and pressure tank should be checked before you start.
7. Watch the clock on wet cabinets and drywall. Mold gets established in a day or two. Open cabinet doors, pull out anything wet, run fans, and get the base cabinets under a leaking sink dried or removed.

What Ian taught this area

In 2022, Ian put surge into homes on Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, and low streets along the river and the bay that had never flooded before. The plumbing lessons were simple. Garage water heaters went under and had to be replaced; the ones restarted anyway did not last. Sewer systems went down with the lift stations and took days to recover, so the houses that stayed off their drains had the easier cleanup. Backflow devices were hit by floating debris. Salt water in supply lines and fixtures caused corrosion that showed up months later. None of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason to shut off, wait, and inspect before you use anything.

Where this stops being a checklist

Everything above is homeowner work. The line is anything that was under water with power or gas attached, sewage in the house, a meter that keeps spinning with the main open, and a flooded well. Those are calls, and they are the calls a plumber expects after a storm.

If you are back in the house and something on this list does not look right, send us photos of what you found and where the water reached. We can tell you what needs replacing, what can wait, and what order to do it in.